Good Hope City Planner Corey Harbison, left, speaks to the Good Hope City Council during Monday's meeting, with Councilman Taft Dillashaw.

GOOD HOPE — While the city works to get grant funding to pay for more expensive parts of the project, the Good Hope City Council discussed beginning the development of a nature trail this winter on the park land it acquired two years ago. 

The city is planning for concrete or gravel trails through the land to serve as walking trails, but there are also plans for a dirt trail to let people get more of a nature walk, and that trail could be completed by city workers, City Planner Corey Harbison said during Monday’s meeting.

“We could do the trail work,” he said. 

The gravel or concrete work on the walking trails will require grant funding for the city to be able to move forward with those parts of the park, but completing the planning and doing the work on natural trails could be funded by the city, he said.

The work would require clearing the land along the trails and mulching the dirt, but the engineering firm behind the project, St. John & Associates, would also need to finalize their plans and send a surveyor out to mark the trail for workers to begin clearing, he said. 

St. John & Associates said their work would cost around $5,000 to complete and a surveyor would likely run from $10,000 to $15,000, so the city could maybe get the first part of the new park completed for a maximum of around $20,000, Harbison said. 

“I think it’s something that we could go ahead and move forward with,” he said. 

He said getting that part of the park completed would offer another amenity to the residents of Good Hope and could also bring in more visitors who are wanting to walk the new trail.

“I think that’ll bring people in the community, to go to a nature trail, especially if we get it done in the spring time, people can really get after it before it gets so hot,” he said. 

Good Hope purchased the 33-acre plot of land adjoining the city’s Municipal Park in 2019, with plans for the land to eventually include trails for public use and for cross country events, along with pavilions, bathrooms, a scout facility and the potential for a splash pad or playground.